After a study of the Revolution in its quality as a religious movement, and the story of the Concordat, our author traces the genesis of this extreme phase of the reaction. Its promoters were all of noble birth and bound by close ties to the old royal families; their aim was political rather than religious; "they craved for religion as a panacea for lawlessness." Their ruling idea was the principle of externality, as opposed to that of inward, personal feeling and private investigation; it was the principle of theocracy, as opposed to the sovereignty of the people; it was the principle of power, as opposed to the principles of human rights and liberties. Chateaubriand's famous book, "Le Génie du Christianisme," devoid of real feeling, attempts to vindicate authority by means of an appeal to sentiment, as if taking for granted that a reasoned faith was now impossible. His point of view is romantic, and therefore, religiously, false; his reasoning is of the "how beautiful!" style. But the principle was enthroned by Count Joseph de Maistre, a very different man. The minister of the King of Sardinia at the court of Russia, he gained the emperor's confidence by his strong and pure character, his royalist principles, and his talents. His more important works, "Du Pape," "De l'Eglise Gallicane," and "Soirées de St. Pétersbourg," are the most uncompromising defence of political and religious autocracy. The fundamental idea of his works is that "there is no human society without government, no government without sovereignty, and no sovereignty without infallibility." Beside De Maistre stands Bonald, a man of the same views, but without the other's daring and versatile wit. Chateaubriand's prose epic "Les Martyrs," the mystically sensual writings of Madame Krüdener, and the lyric poetry of Lamartine and Victor Hugo further popularised the reaction, which reached its breaking point in Lamennais. It was at this moment, April, 1824, that the news came of Byron's death in Greece. The illusion dissolved; the reaction came to an end. The principle of authority fell, never to rise again; and the Immanuelistic school was succeeded by the Satanic. _IV.--Naturalism in England_ The distinguishing character which our author discovers in the English poets is a love of Nature, of the country and the sea, of domestic animals and vegetation. This Naturalism, common to Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Keats, Moore, Shelley and Byron, becomes, when transferred to social interests, revolutionary; the English poet is a Radical. Literary questions interest him not; he is at heart a politician.